“I’ll love you like my very own, Brant. I’ll love you like Caroline loved you. You have my word.” The memory shoots more tears to my eyes because I don’t know if I ever returned that promise. She loved me like I was her own son, yet I could never call her “Mom.” I refused to take their last name because that would make me theirs—and I belonged to Caroline Elliott. But still, even now, she comforts me like I’m hers, despite the fact that I’ve betrayed her in the worst possible way.
